“She is easily the most qualified candidate on either ballot,” it said. “Nikki Haley is an accountant by career and training. Nikki Haley is a mother. Nikki Haley is a military spouse. Nikki Haley is the child of immigrants. Nikki Haley has experience as a successful governor and a diplomat.”
Polling indicates that Trump, who won the Iowa Caucuses on Monday, is in the lead in the Republican race, with Haley second.
“New Hampshire can prove that the independent-minded voters of the Granite State will not be told the election is a done deal,” the endorsement said. “New Hampshire can prove that nothing is inevitable and send Nikki Haley home to South Carolina with a head of steam.”
The Union Leader, which is based in Manchester, has long been influential in New Hampshire politics and, by extension because of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status, nationally. However, its endorsements in contested Republican primaries have not fared all that well in recent years: Both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (2012) and then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (2016) lost.
In 2020, when Trump was basically unopposed on the Republican side, it urged independents or Democrats in its state to back Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who also lost.